1

Obama’s political capital is effectively holding off passage of the Iran sanctions bill now – but it’s still a fightDelmore 2/5/14 (Erin, Political Analyst @ MSNBC, "Democrats split over Syria, Iran," http://www.msnbc.com/all/democrats-split-over-syria-iran)Over strong objections from the president, 16 Senate Democrats support a bill that would impose new sanctions on Iran should the country fail to reach a permanent agreement with international negotiators to roll back its nuclear program.

Those senators , along with 43 Republicans, argue that tough sanctions brought Iran to the negotiating table in the first place and further pressure would flex American muscle in the 6-month talks toward crafting a permanent solution. The bill drew support from Sens . Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y, and Harry Reid, D-Nev., both close allies of Obama’s but also leading supporters of policies favoring Israel. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, America’s most powerful pro-Israel advocacy group, has lobbied members of Congress from both parties to support the sanctions.¶ Other Democrats are siding with the Obama administration, which argues that imposing new sanctions damaged “good-faith” negotiations while empowering Iran’s hard-liners rooting for the talks to fail. (A National Security Council spokeswoman charged last month

that the sanctions bill could end negotiations and bring the U.S. closer to war.) ¶ The Senate bill has been losing steam ever

since the White House ratcheted up pressure on Senate Democrats to abandon the it. Introduced in December by Democrat Robert Menendez, D-N.J. and Sen. Mark Kirk. R-Ill., the legislation was backed by 59 members – but now Senate leaders say they will hold off bringing the legislation to a vote until the six-month negotiation process ends.¶ Adam Sharon, a spokesman for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which Menendez chairs, said the New Jersey Senator stands behind the bill that bears his name. ¶ Menendez and 58 other senators support the bill, Sharon said. “It’s his bill, three or four senators say they wouldn’t call for a vote now. His position has been, having a bill, having this in place is an extremely effective and necessary tool when negotiating with the Iranians that we need to have to avoid Iran crossing the nuclear threshold. He stands behind this bill and the whole essence of the bill is to have sanctions in

waiting, but you have to move on them now to make it happen.”¶ The movement is still alive in the House with enough votes to pass, despite a letter signed by at least 70 Democrats opposing the measure, and a letter of criticism by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Obama reiterated in last week’s State of the Union address a promise to veto any attempt to impose new sanctions on Iran.

Plan drains PC.Shear, 13(Michael, NYT White house correspondent, 5/5, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/world/americas/in-latin-america-us-shifts-focus-from-drug-war-to-economy.html?pagewanted=all)

Last week, Mr. Obama returned to capitals in Latin America with a vastly different message. Relationships with countries racked by drug violence and organized crime should focus more on economic development and less on the

endless battles against drug traffickers and organized crime capos that have left few clear victors. The countries, Mexico in particular, need to

set their own course on security, with the United States playing more of a backing role. That approach runs the risk of being

seen as kowtowing to governments more concerned about their public image than the underlying problems tarnishing it. Mexico , which is eager to play up its economic growth, has mounted an aggressive effort to play down its crime problems , going as far as to encourage the news media to avoid certain slang words in reports. “The

problem will not just go away,” said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue. “It needs to be tackled head-on, with a

comprehensive strategy that includes but goes beyond stimulating economic growth and alleviating poverty. “ Obama

becomes vulnerable to the charge of downplaying the region’s overriding issue , and the chief

obstacle to economic progress ,” he added. “It is fine to change the narrative from security to economics as long as the reality on the ground reflects and fits with the new story line.” Administration officials insist that Mr. Obama remains cleareyed about the security challenges, but the new emphasis corresponds with a change in focus by the Mexican government. The new Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto, took office in December vowing to reduce the violence that exploded under the militarized approach to the drug war adopted by his predecessor, Felipe Calderón. That effort left about 60,000 Mexicans dead and appears not to have significantly damaged the drug-trafficking

industry. In addition to a focus on reducing violence, which some critics have interpreted as taking a softer line on the drug gangs, Mr. Peña Nieto has also moved to reduce American involvement in law enforcement south of the border. With friction and

mistrust between American and Mexican law enforcement agencies growing, Mr. Obama suggested that the United States would no longer seek to dominate the security agenda. “It is obviously up to the Mexican people to determine their security structures and how it engages with other nations, including the United States,” he said, standing next to Mr. Peña Nieto on Thursday in Mexico City. “But the main point I made to the president is that we support the Mexican government’s focus on reducing violence, and we look forward to continuing our good cooperation in any way that the Mexican government deems appropriate.” In some ways, conceding leadership of the drug fight to Mexico hews to a guiding principle of Mr. Obama’s foreign policy, in which American supremacy is played down, at least publicly, in

favor of a multilateral approach. But that philosophy could collide with the concerns of lawmakers in

Washington, who have expressed frustration with what they see as a lack of clarity in Mexico’s securit y plans. And security analysts say the entrenched corruption in Mexican law enforcement has long clouded the partnership with their American counterparts. Putting Mexico in the driver’s se at on security marks a shift in a balance of power that has always tipped to the United States and , analysts said, will carry political risk as Congress

negotiates an immigration bill that is expected to include provisions for tighter border security. “If there

is a perception in the U.S. Congress that security cooperation is weakening , that could play into the

hands of those who oppose immigration reform, ” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a counternarcotics expert at

the Brookings Institution in Washington. “Realistically, the border is as tight as could be and there have been few spillovers of the violence

from Mexico into the U.S.,” she added, but perceptions count in Washington “and can be easily distorted .” “Drugs today are not very important to the U.S. public over all,” she added, “but they are important to committed drug warriors who are politically powerful.” Representative Michael T. McCaul, a Texas Republican who is chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, has warned against the danger of drug cartels forming alliances with terrorist groups. “While these threats exist, you would be surprised to find that the administration thinks its work here is done,” he wrote in an opinion article for Roll Call last month, pressing for more border controls in the bill. The Obama administration has said any evidence of such cooperation is very thin, but even without terrorist connections, drug gangs pose threats to peace and security. Human rights advocates said they feared the United States would ease pressure on Mexico to investigate disappearances and other abuses at the hands of the police and military, who have received substantial American support. The shift in approach “suggests that the Obama administration either doesn’t object to these abusive practices or is only willing to raise such concerns when it’s politically convenient,” said José Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas division. Still, administration officials have said there may have been an overemphasis on the bellicose language and high-profile hunts for cartel leaders while the real problem of lawlessness worsens. American antidrug aid is shifting more toward training police and shoring up judicial systems that have allowed criminals to kill with impunity in Mexico and Central America. United States officials said Mr. Obama remains well aware of the region’s problems with security, even as he is determined that they not overshadow the economic opportunities. It is clear Mr. Obama, whatever his words four years ago, now believes there has been too much security talk. In a speech to Mexican students on Friday, Mr. Obama urged people in the two countries to look beyond a one-dimensional focus on what he called real security concerns, saying it is “time for us to put the old mind-sets aside.” And he repeated the theme later in the day in Costa Rica, lamenting that when it comes to the United States and Central America, “so much of the focus ends up being on security .” “We also have to recognize that problems like narco-trafficking arise in part when a country is vulnerable because of poverty, because of institutions that are not working for the people, because young people don’t see a brighter future ahead,” Mr. Obama said in a news conference with Laura Chinchilla, the president of Costa Rica.

Causes Israel strikesPerr 12/24 (Jon Perr 12/24/13, B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University; technology marketing consultant based in Portland, Oregon, has long been active in Democratic politics and public policy as an organizer and advisor in California and Massachusetts. His past roles include field staffer for Gary Hart

for President (1984), organizer of Silicon Valley tech executives backing President Clinton's call for national education standards (1997), recruiter of tech executives for Al Gore's and John Kerry's presidential campaigns, and co-coordinator of MassTech for Robert Reich (2002). (Jon, “Senate sanctions bill could let Israel take U.S. to war against Iran” Daily Kos, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/24/1265184/-Senate-sanctions-bill-could-let-Israel-take-U-S-to-war-against-Iran#)As 2013 draws to close, the negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program have entered a delicate stage. But in 2014, the tensions will escalate dramatically as a

bipartisan group of Senators brings a new Iran sanctions bill to the floor for a vote. As many others have warned, that promise of new measures against Tehran will almost certainly blow up the interim deal reached by the Obama administration and its UN/EU partners in Geneva. But Congress' highly unusual intervention into the President's domain of foreign policy doesn't just make the prospect of an American conflict with Iran more likely. As it turns out, the Nuclear

Weapon Free Iran Act essentially empowers Israel to decide whether the U nited States will go to war against Tehran. ¶ On their own, the tough new sanctions imposed automatically if a final deal isn't completed in six months pose a daunting enough challenge for President Obama and

Secretary of State Kerry. But it is the legislation's commitment to support an Israeli preventive strike against Iranian nuclear

facilities that almost ensures the U.S. and Iran will come to blows . As Section 2b, part 5 of the draft mandates:¶ If the Government of

Israel is compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran's nuclear weapon program, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide, in accordance with the law of the United States and the constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force, diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence.¶ Now, the legislation being pushed by Senators Mark Kirk (R-IL), Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) does not automatically give the President an authorization to use force should Israel attack the Iranians. (The draft language above explicitly states that the U.S. government must act "in accordance with the law of the United States and the constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force.") But there should be little doubt that an AUMF would be forthcoming from Congressmen on both sides of the aisle. As Lindsey Graham, who with Menendez co-sponsored a similar, non-binding "stand with Israel" resolution in March told a Christians United for Israel (CUFI) conference in July:¶ "If nothing changes in Iran, come September, October, I will present a resolution that will authorize the use of military force to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb."¶ Graham would have plenty of company from the hardest of hard liners in his party. In August 2012, Romney national security adviser and pardoned Iran-Contra architect Elliott Abrams called for a war authorization in the pages of the Weekly Standard. And just two weeks ago, Norman Podhoretz used his Wall Street Journal op-ed to urge the Obama administration to "strike Iran now" to avoid "the nuclear war sure to come."¶ But at

the end of the day, the lack of an explicit AUMF in the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act doesn't mean its supporters aren't giving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu de facto carte blanche to hit Iranian nuclear facilities. The ensuing Iranian retaliation against to Israeli and American interests would almost certainly trigger the commitment of U.S. forces anyway.¶ Even if the Israelis alone launched a strike against Iran's atomic sites, Tehran will almost certainly hit back against U.S. targets in the Straits of Hormuz, in the region, possibly in Europe and even potentially in the American homeland. Israel would face certain retaliation from Hezbollah rockets launched from Lebanon and Hamas missiles raining down from Gaza.¶ That's why former Bush Defense Secretary Bob Gates and CIA head Michael Hayden raising the alarms about the "disastrous" impact of the supposedly surgical strikes against the Ayatollah's nuclear infrastructure. As the New York Times reported in March 2012, "A classified war simulation

held this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials." And that September, a bipartisan group of U.S. foreign policy leaders including Brent Scowcroft, retired Admiral William Fallon, former Republican Senator (now Obama Pentagon chief) Chuck Hagel, retired General Anthony Zinni and former Ambassador Thomas Pickering concluded that American attacks with the objective of "ensuring that Iran never acquires a nuclear bomb" would "need to conduct a significantly expanded air and sea war over a prolonged period of time, likely several years." (Accomplishing regime change, the authors noted, would mean an occupation of Iran requiring a "commitment of resources and personnel greater than what the U.S. has expended over the past 10 years in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.") The anticipated blowback?¶ Serious costs to U.S. interests would also be felt over the longer term, we believe,

with problematic consequences for global and regional stability, including economic stability. A dynamic of escalation , action, and

counteraction could produce serious unintended consequences that would significantly increase all of these costs and

lead, potentially, to all-out regional war .

Impact is nuclear warReuveny 10 (Rafael – professor in the School of Public and Environmental affairs at Indiana University, Unilateral strike on Iran could trigger world depression, p. http://www.indiana.edu/~spea/news/speaking_out/reuveny_on_unilateral_strike_Iran.shtml)A unilateral Israeli strike on Iran ’s nuclear facilities would likely have dire consequences, including a regional

war , global economic collapse and a major power clash . For an Israeli campaign to succeed , it must be

quick and decisive. This requires an attack that would be so overwhelming that Iran would not dare to respond

in full force. Such an outcome is extremely unlikely since the locations of some of Iran’s nuclear facilities are not fully known and known facilities are buried deep underground . All of these widely spread facilities are shielded by elaborate air defense systems constructed not only by the Iranians, but also the Chinese and, likely,

the Russians as well. By now, Iran has also built redundant command and control systems and nuclear facilities, developed early-warning

systems, acquired ballistic and cruise missiles and upgraded and enlarged its armed forces. Because Iran is well-prepared, a

single, conventional Israeli strike — or even numerous strikes — could not destroy all of its capabilities, giving Iran

time to respond. A regional war Unlike Iraq, whose nuclear program Israel destroyed in 1981, Iran has a second-strike capability comprised of a coalition of Iranian, Syrian, Lebanese, Hezbollah, Hamas, and, perhaps, Turkish forces. Internal pressure might compel Jordan, Egypt, and the P alestinian A uthority to join the assault, turning a bad situation into a

regional war. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, at the apex of its power, Israel was saved from defeat by President Nixon’s

shipment of weapons and planes. Today, Israel’s numerical inferiority is greater, and it faces more determined and

better-equipped opponents . Despite Israel’s touted defense systems, Iranian coalition missiles, armed forces, and terrorist attacks

would likely wreak havoc on its enemy, leading to a prolonged tit-for-tat. In the absence of massive U.S. assistance, Israel’s military resources may quickly dwindle , forcing it to use its alleged nuclear weapons , as it had reportedly almost done in

1973. An Israeli nuclear attack would likely destroy most of Iran’s capabilities, but a crippled Iran and its coalition could still attack

neighboring oil facilities, unleash global terrorism , plant mines in the Persian Gulf and impair maritime trade in

the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Middle Eastern oil shipments would likely slow to a trickle as production

declines due to the war and insurance companies decide to drop their risky Middle Eastern clients. Iran and Venezuela would likely

stop selling oil to the U nited S tates and Europe. The world economy would head into a tailspin ; international

acrimony would rise; and Iraqi and Afghani citizens might fully turn on the United States, immediately requiring the deployment of more American troops. Russia, China , Venezuela , and maybe Brazil and Turkey — all of which essentially support Iran — could be tempted to form an alliance and openly challenge the U.S . hegemony. Replaying Nixon’s nightmare Russia and China might rearm their injured Iranian protege overnight, just as Nixon rearmed Israel, and threaten to intervene, just as the U.S.S.R.

threatened to join Egypt and Syria in 1973. President Obama’s response would likely put U.S. forces on nuclear alert , replaying Nixon’s nightmarish scenario. Iran may well feel duty-bound to respond to a unilateral attack by its Israeli archenemy, but it knows that it could not take on the United States head-to-head. In contrast, if the United States leads the attack, Iran’s response would likely be muted. If Iran chooses to absorb an American-led strike, its allies would likely protest and send weapons, but would probably not risk using force. While no one has a crystal ball, leaders should be risk-averse when choosing war as a foreign policy tool. If attacking Iran is deemed

necessary, Israel must wait for an American green light. A unilateral Israeli strike could ultimately spark World War III .

2Interpretation - Engagement requires DIRECT talks – means both governments must be involvedCrocker ‘9 [9/13/09, Chester A. Crocker is a professor of strategic studies at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, was an assistant secretary of state for African affairs from 1981 to 1989. “Terms of Engagement,” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/opinion/14crocker.html?_r=1&]

PRESIDENT OBAMA will have a hard time achieving his foreign policy goals until he masters some key terms and better manages the expectations they convey. Given the furor that will surround the news of America’s readiness to hold

talks with Iran, he could start with “engagement” — one of the trickiest terms in the policy lexicon The Obama administration has used this term to contrast its approach with its predecessor’s resistance to talking with adversaries and troublemakers. His critics show that they misunderstand the concept of

engagement when they ridicule it as making nice with nasty or hostile regimes. Let’s get a few things straight. Engagement in statecraft is not about sweet talk. Nor is it based on the illusion that our problems with rogue regimes can be solved if only

we would talk to them. Engagement is not normalization, and its goal is not improved relations . It is not akin to détente , working for rapprochement, or appeasement . So how do you define an engagement strategy ? It does require direct talks . There is simply no better way to convey authoritative statements of position or to hear responses. But establishing talks is just a first step. The goal of engagement is to change the other country’s perception of its own interests and realistic options and, hence, to modify its policies and its behavior.

Violation – The affirmative is doesn’t engage in both governments. Voting Issue -

1. Limits – they open the floodgates to involvement of thousands of international organizations, non governmental actors, and private companies

2. Ground – direct engagement with the government is necessary for links to international politics and relations based DAs as well as competition for privatization CPs

3

The creation of enemies is purely psychological – that creates a self-fulfilling prophecy Stein 03 Howard, Fall. Professor Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of Oklahoma, psychoanalytic anthropologist and psychohistorian. “Days of Awe: September 11, 2001 and its Cultural Psychodynamics,” Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society 8.2, Project Muse.

We not only need enemies (Volkan, "Need," "Blood Lines"), but we also create enemies by provoking them . We (each "we") project aggression , provoke aggression, and then justify our own aggression as defense . In a

world of true believers and infidels, David Levine writes of the fatal psychological symbiosis of faithful and infidel: When the unfaithful self is projected onto external objects, the aggression we attribute to it becomes their aggression directed at us, their desire to destroy our faith. We must now mobilize aggression to protect ourselves against the infidel, notwithstanding the fact that the threat he poses is the threat of connection with our own split off and disavowed faithless selves. Since the infidel's rejection of the good object is also our own, the aggression we attribute to him is also our own aggression outside and experienced as a threat to us. ("Tolerating" 52) Coninues... If there is some historical truth to the accusation of American abandonment and exploitation of the Near East, does the U.S . not also play an unconscious and symbolic role (a Durkheimian "collective representation"), one which now generates and provokes its own reality ? Put differently, what is the interplay between what we do to others and what we represent to others , between what we actually do (achieved status) and what we projectively are (ascribed

status)? Do not cultures often "get what they unconsciously desire"—which often differs from conscious agendas and interests? Do not groups "dance" in some kind of reciprocal unconscious adversary symbiosis (Stein, "Adversary")?

Further, can this dance with our enemies—who do bad things to us—be separated from the bad things we do within our own national group ? Such a split is common. In the Soviet Union, Stalin was a master of this displacement of his own terror onto the Nazi menace and the Great Patriotic War (World War II) against Fascism. Furthermore, do not the leaders and followers of currently warring groups have childhoods and families of origin, as well as political-economic realities, that affect decision-making? What do these warring groups represent to each other, and what are the overdetermined roots of these symbolisms? Finally, what good are borders (psychological, geographic) if they cannot keep their promises? I leave this interpretive paper and its subject with an overwhelming sense of incompleteness. I accept this void in knowing as necessary. Conventional and stylized accounts are at worst defenses against understanding the meaning of the attack, and at best they are partial truths. What we can know now is limited by the complicated process of mourning (Volkan, Need, Blood Lines; Stein, "Mourning"). Yet, it is often unbearable to mourn, so we flee into violent action. As America focuses exclusively on "what they [the enemy] did and do to us," we have fail ed to pay attention to "what we Americans did and do to ourselves ." Long before September 11, the decade-and-a-half long legacy of "managed social change" from downsizing and restructuring, to outsourcing and reengineering, have symbolically disposed of millions of Americans in the service of instant bottom-line inflation and a surge in shareholder value. The "Enron Scandal," in which company officials took millions of dollars from a collapsing corporation, while prohibiting workers from selling shares, thereby losing their entire retirement savings, emerged in early 2002 as internal American self-destructiveness on an unprecedented economic scale. What and who the United States becomes now as a culture, and what we do in the world, after September 11, 2001 rests upon what and who we value, and not only what and who we oppose. There is so much more to be known, and felt, beyond culturally stylized sentiment and sentimentality, ideologically right thinking, nationalistic jingoism, and obligatory action. People died on that terrible day because people could not be recognized as people. They could only be recognized as symbols, embodiments, part objects. People were killed and people killed others because who and what they represented consumed their existence as distinct, differentiated, and integrated persons. Many more will die, will be killed, in the name of heaven and nation. The psychoanalytic work of comprehending September 11, 2001 is scarcely begun.

Their security representations are inaccurate and cause action-reaction cycles – that’s the root of violence and make extinction inevitable. Even if they win their impacts are true, they must justify that apocalypticism is a good method to approach crises stability. Calkivik 10 (Emine, A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, “DISMANTLING SECURITY”, October 2010, http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/99479/1/Calkivik_umn_0130E_11576.pdf)

Poultry and peasants may seem unlikely subjects to begin narrating international relations. Yet, as I argue throughout my dissertation, this episode is not marginal but symptomatic of a broader transformation: the consolidation of the empire of security across the global bio-political

horizon. The empire at issue is one that is dedicated to protecting life from war s, from hunger, from

addiction, from ideological excess, from environmental catastrophes, from corrupt governments,

and from its own practices . In this empire, security as bio-politics is charged with the task of producing and transforming social life at its most general and global level. In this empire—as citizens, scholars, experts and politicians—we are called upon to be at constant war to secure life against poverty, against rogues, against ignorance and destruction. In this empire, lack of security informs massive efforts devoted to humanitarian interventions and scholarly investigations; it breathes life into innumerous civilizing organizations. Although the so-called Global War on Terror has become a privileged point in the ongoing debates about the changing nature of insecurities and the concomitant reevaluation of the adequacy of existing frameworks to analyze contemporary security landscapes, it is important to notice that long before this war made its way to the top of the agenda of the international community, security had already firmly established itself as a primary value and an omnipresent end

in itself . Through discourses and practices entailed in humanitarian interventions , through the

ever-expanding domains and objects to be secured—from environment to information, from health to food, from the nation to the human—security emerges as the primary objective toward which politics aspires and the ground upon which politics is built. As the idea that we are living in an increasingly dangerous world proliferates, security reaches far beyond official discourses and formal politics. It infuses the mundane, the everyday life, and colonizes the

global social and political imaginary . It enacts a value order produced and reproduced through discourses, practices, and networks that weave together state apparatuses, international organizations, civil society actors, academics, experts, and private companies. Perhaps just as alarming is the proliferation of the phenomenon of vigilante citizens, as subjects around the globe take the law into their hands to secure themselves against gangs, drugs, and “illegal aliens.” One of the paradigmatic examples of this “statecraft from below” is civilian border patrol groups such as the Minutemen Project, founded in California in 2004 by a retired businessman to police the U.S.-Mexico border against the so-called invasion by immigrants. 9 As Doty explains, with undocumented migration becoming an increasingly prominent issue and the filling up of media outlets with news of humans referred to as “aliens” being trafficked across borders, ordinary citizens respond to calls from private groups to take action and form their own unofficial, unauthorized, but not necessarily illegal patrolling of borders. The global army that security enlists in its service is not situated merely at the borders of national territories and identities , however. Across the globe, there are many private patrol groups that are formed to clamp down on local crime, monitor other illicit and unwanted behavior. Depicting this trend as “both a logical response and an integral aspect” of the global political order wrought by neoliberalism, Pratten and Sen provide ample proof of the rising tide of vigilante-style justice and violence as a global phenomenon. 10 It could be said that the obsession with security is democratized to the extent that it has become a common language , a “vernacular ” 11 shared

across topographies of global hierarchies. The post-Cold War jubilation in countries that have witnessed political liberation and economic liberalization has been accompanied by the emergence of an overwhelming fear of crime and a desire for security. 12 As the global security agenda was transmogrifying toward an obsession with securing the life of the species, 13 eagerness to criminalize dystopic social phenomenon

such as poverty became a global phenomenon : zero tolerance policies turned into wars on urban

squatters, practically evolving into an active “dictatorship over the poor.” 14 Security has become a medium

through which we relate to —orient ourselves towards— life, politics, and the world . As I discuss below,

with the logic of preemption and precautionary principles becoming definitive of contemporary politics of security, not merely the fear of what exists, but also the danger of what might be — not only one’s chances

today, but also one’s fortunes tomorrow— has become the stock and trade of security discourse and practices. What

is paradoxical is that this “will to secure” saturates life at a time when a constant state of terror emerges

as the defining condition of life . It is a terror underwritten by monstrous inequalities and oppression affecting unprecedented numbers of human beings on earth as systemic and non-systemic violence casts its shadow on everyday life around the globe. It is a terror that afflicts not only the “wretched of the earth,” but liberal societies as well—societies that have taken upon themselves the task of securing of common humanity through a

temporally, spatially limitless War on Terror. 15 This paradoxical co-existence of the hegemony of security amidst ever proliferating dangers and intensifying insecurities provides the intellectual focus and central question of my

dissertation. Against the reigning passion to secure, my argument is that what is needed is not more security, but to

dismantle the whole architecture of security . Rather than writing security, I suggest, critical inquiry needs to be “untimely” 16 and reflect upon the meaning, content, and political implications of producing and reproducing for security so as to open a space for dismantling it . Taking as my starting point the way in which the global passion to secure disavows the violence and insecurity it renders, I ask: what would it

mean to dismantle security rather than reproduce its imperial gaze ? What political imaginaries are available, which we can draw upon? How might those political imaginaries alternatively be deployed, and with what effects? What would the political and

ethical implications of such an undertaking be? How could they help us envision a new ethics, a new politics?

Vote negative to reject the dominant framing of security. A focus on the epistemological and representational security lens of the AFF is a prerequisite to effective policy solutionsBruce ‘96 (Robert, Associate Professor in Social Science – Curtin University and Graeme Cheeseman, Senior Lecturer – University of New South Wales, Discourses of Danger and Dread Frontiers, p. 5-9)

This goal is pursued in ways which are still unconventional in the intellectual milieu of international relations in Australia, even though they are gaining influence worldwide as traditional modes of theory and practice are rendered inadequate by global trends that defy comprehension, let alone policy. The inability to give meaning to global changes reflects partly the enclosed , elitist world of professional security analysts and bureaucratic experts , where entry is gained by learning and accepting to speak a particular, exclusionary language. The contributors to this book are familiar with the discourse, but accord no privileged

place to its ‘knowledge form as reality’ in debates on defence and security. Indeed, they believe that debate will be furthered only through a long overdue critical re-evaluation of elite perspectives. Pluralistic, democratically-oriented perspectives on

Australia’s identity are both required and essential if Australia’s thinking on defence and security is to be invigorated. This is not a

conventional policy book; nor should it be, in the sense of offering policy-makers and their academic counterparts sets of neat alternative solutions, in familiar language and format, to problems they pose. This expectation is in itself a

considerable part of the problem to be analysed . It is, however, a book about policy, one that questions how problems are framed by policy-makers . It challenges the proposition that irreducible bodies of real knowledge on

defence and security exist independently of their ‘context in the world’, and it demonstrates how security

policy is articulated authoritatively by the elite keepers of that knowledge, experts trained to recognize enduring, universal wisdom. All others, from this perspective, must accept such wisdom or remain outside the expert domain, tainted by their inability to comply with the ‘rightness’ of the official line. But it is precisely the official line, or at least its image of the world, that needs to be problematised. If the critic responds directly to the demand for policy alternatives, without addressing this image, he or she is tacitly endorsing it. Before

engaging in the policy debate the critics need to reframe the basic terms of reference . This book, then, reflects and underlines the importance of Antonio Gramsci and Edward Said’s ‘critical intellectuals’.15 The demand, tacit or otherwise, that the policy-maker’s frame of reference be accepted as the only basis for discussion and analysis ignores a three thousand year old tradition commonly associated with Socrates and purportedly integral to the Western tradition of democratic dialogue. More immediately, it ignores post-seventeenth century democratic traditions which insist that a good society must have within it some way of critically assessing its knowledge and the decisions based upon that knowledge which impact upon citizens of such a society. This is a tradition with a slightly different connotation in contemporary liberal democracies which, during the Cold War, were proclaimed different and superior to the totalitarian enemy precisely because there were institutional checks and balances upon power. In short, one of the major differences between ‘open societies’ and their (closed) counterparts behind the Iron Curtain was that the former encouraged the critical testing of the knowledge and decisions of the powerful and assessing them against liberal democratic principles. The latter tolerated criticism only on rare and limited occasions. For some, this represented the triumph of rational-scientific methods of inquiry and techniques of falsification. For others, especially since positivism and rationalism have lost much of their allure, it meant that for society to become open and liberal, sectors of the population must be independent of the state and free to question its knowledge and power. Though we do not expect this position to be accepted by every reader, contributors to this book believe that critical dialogue is long overdue in Australia and needs to be listened to. For all its liberal democratic trappings, Australia’s security community continues to invoke closed monological narratives on defence and security. This book also questions the distinctions between policy practice and academic theory that inform conventional accounts of Australian security. One of its major concerns, particularly in chapters 1 and 2, is to illustrate how theory is integral to the practice of security ; analysis and policy prescription . The book also calls on policy-makers, academics and students of defence and security to think critically about what they are reading, writing and saying; to begin to ask, of their work and study, difficult and searching questions raised in other disciplines; to recognise, no matter

how uncomfortable it feels, that what is involved in theory and practice is not the ability to identify a replacement for

failed models, but a realisation that terms and concepts – state sovereignty, balance of power, security, and so on – are contested and problematic, and that the world is indeterminate, always becoming what is written about it . Critical analysis which shows how particular kinds of theoretical presumptions can effectively exclude vital areas of political life from analysis has direct practical implications for policy-makers, academics and citizens who face the daunting task of steering Australia through some potentially choppy international waters over the next few years. There is also much of interest in the chapters for those struggling to give meaning to a world where so much that has long been taken for granted now demands imaginative, incisive reappraisal. The contributors, too, have struggled to find meaning, often despairing at the terrible human costs of

international violence. This is why readers will find no single, fully formed panacea for the world’s ills in general, or

Australia’s security in particular. There are none. Every chapter, however, in its own way, offers something more than is found in

orthodox literature, often by exposing ritualistic Cold War defence and security mind-sets that are dressed up as new thinking. Chapters 7 and 9, for example, present alternative ways of engaging in security and defence practice. Others (chapters 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8) seek to alert policy-makers, academics and students to alternative theoretical possibilities which might better serve an Australian community pursuing security and prosperity in an uncertain world. All chapters confront the policy community and its counterparts in the academy with a deep awareness of the intellectual and material constraints imposed by dominant traditions of realism, but they avoid dismissive and exclusionary terms which often in the past characterized exchanges between policy-makers and their critics. This is because, as noted earlier, attention needs to be paid to the words and the thought processes of those being criticized.

A close reading of this kind draws attention to underlying assumptions, showing they need to be recognized and questioned. A sense of doubt (in place of confident certainty) is a necessary prelude to a genuine

search for alternative policies. First comes an awareness of the need for new perspectives, then

specific policies may follow . As Jim George argues in the following chapter, we need to look not so much at contending policies as they are made for us but at challenging ‘the discursive process which gives [favoured

interpretations of “reality”] their meaning and which direct [Australia’s] policy/analytical/military responses’. This process is not restricted to the small, official defence and security establishment huddled around the US-Australian War Memorial in Canberra. It also encompasses much of Australia’s academic defence and security community located primarily though not exclusively within the Australian National University and the University College of the University of New South Wales. These discursive processes are examined in detail in subsequent chapters as authors attempt to make sense of a politics of exclusion and closure which exercises disciplinary power over Australia’s security community. They also question the discourse of ‘regional security’, ‘security cooperation’, ‘peacekeeping’ and ‘alliance politics’ that are central to Australia’s official and academic security agenda in the 1990s. This is seen as an important task especially when, as is revealed, the disciplines of International Relations and Strategic Studies are under challenge from critical and theoretical debates ranging across the social sciences and humanities; debates that are nowhere to be found in Australian defence and security studies. The chapters graphically illustrate how Australia’s public policies on defence and security are informed, underpinned and legitimised by a narrowly-based intellectual enterprise which draws strength from contested concepts of realism and liberalism, which in turn seek legitimacy through policy-making processes. Contributors ask whether Australia’s policy-makers and their academic advisors are unaware of broader intellectual debates, or resistant to them, or choose not to understand them, and why?

4 Simulating images of death and violence anesthetizes us to real death and produces a culture of structural violence that makes infinite destruction appear desirable- vote neg to embrace a pedagogy of debate outside of violent spectacles.Giroux ’12 Henry A Giroux, Frequent author on pedagogy in the public sphere, Truthout, “Youth in Revolt: The Plague of State-Sponsored Violence,” March 14, 2012, http://truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=7249:youth-in-revolt-the-plague-of-statesponsored-violence

One consequence is that "the sheer numbers and monotony of images may have a 'wearing off' impact [and] to stave off the 'viewing fatigue,' they must be increasingly gory, shocking and otherwise 'inventive' to arouse any sentiments at all or indeed draw attention . The level of 'familiar'

violence , below which the cruelty of cruel acts escapes attention, is constantly rising ."(23) Hyper-violence and

spectacular representations of cruelty disrupt and block our ability to respond politically and

ethically to the violence as it is actually happening on the ground . In this instance, unfamiliar violence such as extreme images of torture and death become banally familiar, while familiar violence that occurs daily is barely recognized relegated to the realm of the unnoticed and unnoticeable. How else to explain the public indifference to the violence waged by the state against nonviolent youthful protesters, who are rebelling against a society in which they have been excluded from any claim on hope, prosperity and democracy. As an increasing volume of violence is pumped into the culture, yesterday's spine-chilling and nerve-wrenching violence loses its shock value. As the need for more intense images of violence accumulates, the moral indifference and desensitization to violence grows while matters of cruelty and suffering are offered up as fodder for sports, entertainment, news media, and other outlets for seeking pleasure .

5

The United States federal government should condition offering Mexico a requirement that the North American Development Bank finance transportation infrastructure projects, including that the North American Development Bank issue bi-national bonds for transportation infrastructure projects on the federal government of Mexico meeting the four human rights requirements of the Mérida Initiative. The United States federal government should decide if the federal government of Mexico meets these requirements based off the findings of Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos.

Solves the AFF and boosts our human rights credWOLA 10 - (Washington Office of Latin America- contains multiple experts on human rights abuse in latin america and quotes the state department's report "Congress: Withhold Funds for Mexico Tied to Human Rights Performance" 9/14/10, http://www.wola.org/publications/congress_withhold_funds_for_mexico_tied_to_human_rights_performance) The US government significantly strengthened its partnership with Mexico in combating organized crime in 2007 when it announced the Merida Initiative, a multi-year US security assistance package for Mexico. To date, the US government has allocated roughly $1.5 billion in Merida funding to Mexico. From the outset, the US Congress recognized the importance of ensuring that the Mexican government respect human rights in its public security efforts, mandating by law that 15 percent of select Merida funds be withheld until the State Department issued a report to the US Congress which showed that Mexico had demonstrated it was meeting four human rights requirements. ¶ ¶ On September 2, 2010, the State Department issued its second report to Congress concluding that Mexico is meeting the Merida Initiative’s human rights requirements, and it stated its intention to obligate roughly $36 million in

security assistance that had been withheld from the 2009 supplemental and the 2010 omnibus budgets. ¶ However, research conducted by our respective organizations, Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, and even the State Department’s own reports, demonstrates conclusively that Mexico has failed to meet the four human

rights requirements set out by law . As a result, Congress should not release these select Merida funds. Releasing these funds would send the message that the U nited S tates condones the grave human rights violations committed in Mexico, including torture, rape, killings, and enforced disappearances. ¶ We recognize that Mexico

is facing a severe public security crisis, and that the United States can play a constructive role in strengthening Mexico’s ability to confront organized crime in an effective manner. However, human rights violations committed by Mexican security forces are not only deplorable in their own right, but also significantly undermine the effectiveness of Mexico’s public security efforts. Building trust between the Mexican people and the government is essential to gathering information to dismantle organized crime. When security forces commit grave human rights violations and they are not held accountable for their actions, they lose that trust, alienating key allies and leaving civilians in a state of terror and defenselessness. It is thus in the interest of both of our countries to help Mexico curb systematic human rights violations, ensure that violations are effectively investigated and those responsible held accountable, and assess candidly the progress Mexico is making towards improving accountability and transparency. ¶ Evidence demonstrates that Mexico is not fulfilling effectively any of the requirements established by Congress , particularly those dealing with prosecuting military abuses and torture:

HR cred solves conflict Burke-White 4 (William W., Lecturer in Public and International Affairs and Senior Special Assistant to the Dean, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University The Harvard Environmental Law Review Spring, 2004 LN,https://www.law.upenn.edu/cf/faculty/wburkewh/workingpapers/17HarvHumRtsJ249(2004).pdf)This Article presents a strategic--as opposed to ideological or normative--argument that the promotion of human rights should be given a more prominent place in U.S. foreign policy . It does so by suggesting a

correlation between the domestic human rights practices of states and their propensity to engage

in aggressive international conduct . Among the chief threats to U.S. national security are acts of aggression by other states.

Aggressive acts of war may directly endanger the United States, as did the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941,

or they may require U.S. military action overseas, as in Kuwait fifty years later. Evidence from the post-Cold War period

[*250] indicates that states that systematically abuse their own citizens' h uman r ights are also those most

likely to engage in aggression . To the degree that improvements in various states' human rights records

decrease the likelihood of aggressive war , a foreign policy informed by human rights can significantly enhance U.S. and

global security.¶ Since 1990, a state's domestic human rights policy appears to be a telling indicator of that

state's propensity to engage in international aggression . A central element of U.S. foreign policy has long been the

preservation of peace and the prevention of such acts of aggression. n2 If the correlation discussed herein is accurate, it provides U.S. policymakers with a powerful new tool to enhance national security through the promotion of human rights. A strategic linkage between national security and human rights would result in a number of important policy modifications. First, it changes the prioritization of those countries U.S. policymakers have identified as presenting the greatest concern. Second, it alters some of the policy prescriptions for such states. Third, it offers states a means of signaling benign international intent through the improvement of their domestic human rights records. Fourth, it provides a way for a current government to prevent future governments from aggressive international behavior through the institutionalization of human rights protections . Fifth, it addresses the particular threat of human rights abusing states obtaining weapons of mass

destruction ( WMD ). Finally, it offers a mechanism for U.S.-U.N. cooperation on human rights issues.

Manu

Overwhelming Mexican opposition to the AFF – the plan is an insurmountable obstacle which kills Nieto’s credibilityStarr 12 - Director, U.S.-Mexico Network Associate Professor (NTT) University Fellow, Center on Public Diplomacy University of Southern California (Pamela, “U.S.-Mexico Relations and Mexican Domestic Politics”, October 6 of 2012, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&ved=0CD4QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcollege.usc.edu%2Fusmexnet%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2010%2F10%2FCamp-Oxford-paper-final.doc&ei=mTLYUZTDMbOLyQGT14GwCQ&usg=AFQjCNH_cqiYTQRo7SFmpfWugH9ABshhCg&sig2=_M2KmLNnt3e8v4vVshc_fQ)The final implication of Mexican nationalism for U.S.-Mexico relations is the nearly insurmountable

obstacle it erected to political alliances between Mexican actors and their U.S. counterparts , which has

broken down only gradually and incompletely since the mid-1990s. For decades, the fear of being tarred as a traitor to the nation prevented Mexican leaders from seeking allies to their cause in the United States and thereby deprived U.S. actors of an easy point of entry into Mexican politics . Mexicans who ignored this taboo paid the price even in the final years of the twentieth century. In the 1980s, the then opposition National Action Party openly elicited U.S. backing for its charges of electoral fraud and associated actions of civil disobedience, producing a nationalist backlash in Mexico that sharply undercut the legitimacy of its claims. In the early 1990s, Mexican opponents of the North American Free Trade Agreement

formed an alliance with their U.S. and Canadian counterparts, leading to accusations of having organized traitorous “campaigns against Mexico in the United States.” ¶ Carlos Salinas’ 1990 decision to summon U.S. assistance to lock in his domestic economic reform agenda through a bilateral trade treaty and his active lobbying to gain U.S. congressional approval of the treaty dealt a blow to this long-standing taboo. As a result, cross-border alliances are now increasingly common and accepted, but

they are heavily concentrated among civil society actors. Mexico’s continuing anxiety about U.S. political domination, however, means that tolerance for cross-border political alliances is much less

developed . While Mexican policy makers and analysts o f the bilateral relationship have significantly more freedom of action to work with their U.S. counterparts in the early twenty-first century than did their predecessors, they still must watch their step or risk having their reputation sullied for being excessively “pro-gringo .” Mexicans remain uneasy living next door to a superpower; they continue to worry that the United States might get the notion to translate its power into domination of Mexico, its politics, policy, and culture , and they thus still approach their neighbor with trepidation. As a result, Mexican politicians and policy makers still must take care to avoid the appearance of being too willing to accept support and guidance from north of the border.

Nieto credibility is key the Mexican economy – turns the entire AFF Ruelas-Gossi 12 - professor of strategy at the Santiago, Chile-based Universidad Adolfo Ibañez (Alejandro, “Peña Nieto's Plans for Mexico's Economy”, October 15 of 2012, Harvard Business Review, http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/10/mexico_is_the_perfect_dictator.html) For one, Peña Nieto will likely bring about major reforms in the energy sector soon after he takes office. The new laws should enable Mexico, one of the world's top 10 producers, to follow Brazil in developing a successful oil and gas industry in South America. That will attract several potential investors from abroad.¶ Two, fiscal and labor reforms will enable Mexico to become more competitive. The former will help the government switch from volatile sources of revenue, such as oil prices, to more stable ones. Fiscal stability will also create a more competitive environment and eliminate subsidies, such as those on gasoline. An economy without subsidies will

undoubtedly attract more foreign investment .¶ The changes in the labor laws are also linked to fiscal reforms since the current tax regime doesn't provide incentives for the informal economy to change . Mexico is the only OECD economy that doesn't offer unemployment insurance; health insurance for informal workers; or short-term contracts that will attract more women to the workforce.¶ Many of these reforms have been on the agenda for the last decade, so the PAN will have to support policies that it promoted when it was in power. Moreover, allies and adversaries alike concede that Peña Nieto

showed a knack for working with opposition parties when he was the governor of the state of Mexico, but lacked a majority in the legislature.¶ Three, Peña Nieto wants to develop closer links between the Mexican economy and those of the Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America. That's a step in the right direction.¶ Historically, Mexico hasn't taken advantage of the three most important predictors of trade: A shared history, a common language, and regional trade agreements. As a result, big Mexican companies haven't moved into Latin America while American multinational corporations have done so , and Mexico depends on NAFTA for more than 80% of its exports .¶ Finally, Peña Nieto's economic slogan during the election campaign was Para Que Ganes Mas (You Will Earn More). He hasn't quite explained how his government will ensure that, but the message sends the signal that the PRI wishes not just to create jobs, but jobs that will pay higher salaries.¶

That's a major shift from the ideas of a previous PRI president , Ernesto Zedillo, who firmly believed that "the best industrial policy is one that doesn't exist." Instead, Mexico must grow by developing policies that will augment the value of the products and services produced in the country -- just like some other countries in Latin America.

Economic collapse doesn’t cause warFerguson, 06 – M.A., Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, Resident faculty member of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University (Niall, “The Next War of the World”, Foreign Affairs, September-October 2006, May 21 st 2010, KONTOPOULOS)Nor can economic crises explain the bloodshed. What may be the most familiar causal chain in modern historiography links the Great Depression to the rise of fascism and the outbreak of World War II. But that simple story leaves too much out. Nazi Germany started the war in Europe only after its economy had recovered. Not all the countries affected by the Great Depression were taken over by fascist regimes, nor did all such regimes start wars of aggression. In fact, no general relationship between economics and conflict is discernible for the century as a whole. Some wars came after periods of growth, others were the causes rather than the consequences of economic catastrophe, and some severe economic crises were not followed by wars.

Heg makes war inevitableLayne, 06 - Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley (Christopher, 2006, “The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present”, p. 169, KONTOPOULOS) PDF

Proponents of U.S. hegemony like to say that America’s military commit ments in Eurasia are an insurance policy against the purportedly damaging consequences of a Eurasian great power war by preventing it from happen ing in the first place or limiting its harmful effects if it does happen. This is a dubious analogy , because insurance policies neither prevent, nor limit, damage to policyholders. Rather, they compensate the policyholder for dam age incurred. Even on its own terms, however, the insurance policy argu - ment is not persuasive. Both Californians and Floridians know that some types of insurance are either unaffordable or unobtainable at any price. The chances of the “Big One”—a catastrophic earthquake on the San Andreas Fault—jolting Los Angeles or San Francisco, or a Force 5 hurricane making a direct hit on Miami, are small. But if either were to happen the consequences could be catastrophic, which is why insurance companies don’t want to offer earthquake and hurricane insurance. Prospective great power wars in Eurasia represent a similar dynamic: the risk of such a war breaking out may be low, but if it does it could be

prohibitively expensive for the United States to be involved. Rather than being instruments of regional pacification, today America’s alliances are transmission belts for war that ensure that the U.S. would be embroiled in Eurasian wars . In deciding whether to go war in Eurasia, the United States should not allow its hands to be tied in advance. For example, a non—great power war on the Korean Peninsula—even if nuclear

weapons were not involved—would be very costly. The dangers of being entangled in a great power war in Eurasia , of course, are even greater, and could expose the American homeland to nuclear attack . An offshore balancing grand strat egy would extricate the U nited States from the danger of being entrapped in Eurasian conflicts by its alliance commitments.

No impact to hegemonic decline – their studies are wrong MacDonald, 11 - Assistant Professor of Political Science at Williams College (Paul K, Spring 2011, "Graceful Decline?: The Surprising Success of Great Power Retrenchment", International Security, Vol. 35, No. 4, UTD McDermitt Library, KONTOPOULOS)

How do great powers respond to acute decline? The erosion of the relative power of the United States has scholars and

policymakers reexamining this question. The central issue is whether prompt retrenchment is desirable or probable. Some pessimists counsel that

retrenchment is a dangerous policy, because it shows weakness and invites attack. Robert

Kagan, for example, warns , "A reduction in defense spending . . . would unnerve

American allies and undercut efforts to gain greater cooperation. There is already a sense around the world, fed by irresponsible pundits here at home, that the United States is in terminal decline. Many fear that the economic crisis will cause the United States to pull back from overseas commitments. The announcement of a defense

cutback would be taken by the world as evidence that the American retreat has begun."1 Robert Kaplan likewise

argues, "Husbanding our power in an effort to slow America's decline in a post-Iraq and post-Afghanistan world would

mean avoiding debilitating land entanglements and focusing instead on being more of an offshore balancer. . . . While this may be in America's interest, the very signaling of such an aloof intention may encourage regional bullies. . . . [L]essening our engagement with the world would have devastating consequences for humanity. The disruptions we witness today are but a taste of what is to come should our country flinch from its international responsibilities."2 The consequences of these views are clear: retrenchment should be avoided and forward defenses maintained into the indefinite future.3 Other observers advocate retrenchment policies, but they are pessimistic [End Page 7] about their prospects.4 Christopher Layne, for instance, predicts, "Even as the globe is being turned upside down by material factors, the foreign policies of individual states are shaped by the ideas leaders hold about their own nations' identity and place in world politics. More than most, America's foreign policy is the product of such ideas, and U.S. foreign-policy elites have constructed their own myths of empire to justify the United States' hegemonic role."5 Stephen Walt likewise advocates greater restraint in U.S. grand strategy, but cautions, "The United States . . . remains a remarkably immature great power, one whose rhetoric is frequently at odds with its conduct and one that tends to treat the management of foreign affairs largely as an adjunct to domestic politics. . . . [S]eemingly secure behind its nuclear deterrent and oceanic moats, and possessing unmatched economic and military power, the United States allowed its foreign policy to be distorted by partisan sniping, hijacked by foreign lobbyists and narrow domestic special interests, blinded by lofty but unrealistic rhetoric, and held hostage by irresponsible and xenophobic members of Congress."6 Although retrenchment is a preferable policy, these arguments suggest that great powers often cling to unprofitable foreign commitments for parochial reasons of

national culture or domestic politics.7 These arguments have grim implications for

contemporary international politics. With the rise of new powers, such as China, the international pecking

order will be in increasing flux in the coming decades.8 Yet, if the pessimists are correct ,

politicians and interests groups in the U nited States will be unwilling or unable to realign resources with overseas commitments .

Perceptions of weakness and declining U.S. credibility will encourage policymakers to hold on to burdensome overseas commitments, despite their high costs in blood and treasure.9 Policymakers in

Washington will struggle to retire from profitless military engagements and restrain ballooning current accounts and budget deficits.10 For some observers, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

represent the ill-advised last gasps of a declining hegemon seeking to bolster its plummeting position.11 In this article, we question the logic and evidence of the retrenchment pessimists . To

date there has been neither a comprehensive study of great power retrenchment nor a study that lays out the case for retrenchment as a practical or probable policy. This article fills these gaps by

systematically examining the relationship between acute relative decline and the responses of great powers . We examine eighteen cases of acute relative

decline since 1870 and advance three main arguments. First, we challenge the retrenchment pessimists'

claim that domestic or international constraints inhibit the ability of declining great powers to retrench. In fact, when states fall in the hierarchy of great powers , peaceful retrenchment is the most common response , even over short time spans. Based on the empirical record, we find that great powers retrenched in no less than eleven and no more than fifteen of the eighteen cases, a range of 61-83 percent.

When international conditions demand it, states renounce risky ties, increase reliance on allies or adversaries, draw down their military

obligations, and impose adjustments on domestic populations. Second, we find that the magnitude of relative decline helps explain the extent of great power retrenchment. Following the

dictates of neorealist theory, great powers retrench for the same reason they expand: the rigors of great power politics compel them to do so.12 Retrenchment is by no

means easy, but [End Page 9] necessity is the mother of invention, and declining great powers face

powerful incentives to contract their interests in a prompt and proportionate manner. Knowing only a state's rate of relative economic decline explains its corresponding degree of retrenchment in as much as 61 percent of the cases we examined. Third, we argue that the rate of decline helps explain what forms great power retrenchment will take. How fast great powers fall contributes to whether these retrenching states will internally reform, seek new allies or rely more heavily on old ones, and make diplomatic

overtures to enemies. Further, our analysis suggests that great powers facing acute decline are less likely to initiate or escalate militarized interstate disputes. Faced with diminishing resources, great powers moderate their foreign policy ambitions and offer concessions in areas of lesser strategic value. Contrary to the pessimistic conclusions of critics, retrenchment neither requires aggression nor invites predation. Great powers are able to rebalance their commitments through compromise, rather than conflict. In these ways, states respond to penury the same way they do to plenty: they seek to adopt policies that maximize security given available means. Far from being a

hazardous policy, retrenchment can be successful. States that retrench

often regain their position in the hierarchy of great powers . Of the fifteen great powers that adopted retrenchment in response to acute relative decline, 40 percent managed to recover their ordinal rank. In contrast, none of the declining powers that failed to retrench recovered their relative position.

BNB

No motivation, no access and vaccines check the impactClark ‘8 – Emeritus Professor in Immunology at UCLAWilliam R. Clark, emeritus professor in Immunology at UCLA. Bracing for Armageddon?: The Science and Politics of Bioterrorism in America, 2008, pg. 183

In the end, what may well stop groups like Al-Qaeda from using bioweapons to achieve their aims against us is that it is just too much trouble . Not only are biological weapons exceedingly difficult to build and operate , the U nited S tates has now developed vaccines or drugs to counter most known conventional pathogens. Countermeasures for the rest should be available over the next few years. We have the Strategic National Stockpile, Push Packages, and vendor-managed inventories, as well as the ability to deliver these materials and more to an attack site within a matter of hours. We could suffer casualties, yes, but not mass casualties. Conventional bombs and chemicals are must easier to obtain and use, and can achieve much the same ends with less risk. Sophisticated terrorist groups may well agree with virtually all professional of the military establishments around the world that actually had effective bioweapons in hand: they are simply not worth the bother. For at least the near future, bioterrorism for Al-Qaeda and its ilk may be a non-starter .

No extinction impact.Britt ‘1Robert Roy Britt, Senior Space Writer/Space.com. “Survival of the Elitist: Bioterrorism May Spur Space Colonies”. October 30 2001. http://www.space4peace.org/articles/moving.htmMany scientists argue that there is no need to worry about the mortality of civilization right now. Eric Croddy is an expert on c hemical and b iological w eapons at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Croddy said the threat of a virus wiping out the entire human species is simply not real. Even the most horrific virus outbreak in history , the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic that killed between 20 million and 40 million people, including hundreds of thousands in the United States,

eventually stopped. Experts say new strains of the influenza virus emerge every few decades and catch the human immune system unprepared, but

prevention measures and ever-evolving medical treatments overcome the outbreaks . "I'd be much more concerned about an asteroid hitting the planet ," Croddy said .

No water wars Katz 11—Director of the Akirov Institute for Business and Environment at Tel Aviv University. PhD (David, Hydro-Political Hyperbole, Global Environmental Politics, 11; 1; Feb 2011)

A number critiques have been leveled against both the theory and the empirical evidence behind the

water wars hypothesis. One critique of the environmental security literature, of which much of the published material on water wars is guilty, is that warnings and

threats of future violence are often considered as evidence .28 Statements from the 1980s that the next

war in the Middle East will be over water have already proven false . Research has shown, however, that even the more

general predictions of imminent water wars that are based on comments by officials may be suspect. Leng, for instance, found no

correlation between the frequency of threats of war and the onset of war . 29 Examining conflict and cooperation

over water resources, Yoffe and colleagues noted over 400 incidents of water-related verbal exchanges by political figures between 1948 and 1999 that were conflictual in nature, but only 37 instances of violent conflict of varying levels of intensity. Thirty of these were from the Middle East, none were [End Page 15] more recent than 1970,

none were all-out wars, and in none was water the central cause of conflict .30

Proponents of water war scenarios often premise their dire conclusions on the fact that water is essential for life and non-substitutable.31 Yet water for basic needs represents a small share of total water use , even in arid countries.32 Economists and others point out that over 80 percent of world freshwater withdrawals are for the agricultural sector, a relatively low-value use and one in which large

gains in efficiency could be made by changes in irrigation techniques and choice of crops. Thus, economic critiques of the water war hypothesis stress that the value of water that would be gained from military conflict is unlikely to outweigh the economic costs of military preparation and battle, much less the loss of life.33

Some authors have even questioned the empirical basis for the conclusion that freshwater is increasingly scarce, 34 an assumption on which the water war hypothesis relies. Such a “cornucopian” view claims that people adapt to scarcity through

improvements in tech nology, pricing, and efficiency —rendering water less scarce, not more so. Perhaps the strongest case against the likelihood of water wars is the lack of empirical evidence of

precedents. Wolf found only one documented case of war explicitly over water, and this took place over 4500 years ago . 35 Moreover, he could document only seven cases of acute conflict over water. Yoffe and colleagues also find that armed conflict over water resources has been

uncommon.36 They found that cooperation was much more common than conflict , both globally and in all world regions except the Middle East/North Africa. This pattern may explain why only a limited number of case studies of water conflict are presented in the water wars literature.Analysts have criticized environmental security arguments that are based on case studies because such works tend to have no variation in the dependent variable.37 Many large sample statistical studies have attempted to address such shortcomings, however, in several cases these studies too have come under fire. For instance, a number of large-sample

statistical studies find correlations between water -related variables and conflict, however, few, if

any, provide convincing support for causal relationships . Moreover, several studies found that water availability had no impact on the

likelihood of either domestic or international conflict, 38 including at least one study that attempted to replicate earlier studies [End Page 16] that claimed to have found such

correlations.39 Moreover, the results of several studies that do find correlations between water and conflict are either

not robust or are contrasted by other findings. For instance, Raleigh and Urdal find that the statistical significance of water scarcity variables is highly dependent on one

or two observations, leading them to conclude that actual effects of water scarcity “are weak, negligible or insignificant.”40 Jensen and Gleditsch find that the results of Miguel and colleagues are less robust when using a recoding of the original dataset.41 Gleditsch and colleagues found that shared basins do predict an increased propensity for conflict, but found no correlation between conflict and drought, the number of river crossings, or the share of the basin upstream, leading them to state that “support for a scarcity theory of water conflict is somewhat ambiguous.”42

The term terror is a rhetorical tool to paper over the violence of US militarism that occurs on a daily basis. The terror expert industry is not academic but political—view their evidence with skepticism. Greenwald 8/15/12 (Glenn, Glenn Greenwald is a former Constitutional and civil rights litigator and is the author of three New York Times Bestselling books: two on the Bush administration's executive power and foreign policy abuses, and his latest book, With Liberty and Justice for Some, an indictment of America's¶ two-tiered system of justice. Greenwald was named by The Atlantic as one of the 25 most influential political commentators in the nation. He is the recipient of the first annual I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism, and is the winner of the 2010 Online Journalism Association Award for his investigative work on the arrest and oppressive detention of Bradley Manning. “The sham “terrorism expert” industry”, http://www.salon.com/2012/08/15/the_sham_terrorism_expert_industry/)

But the most pernicious attribute of this “terror expert” industry, the aspect that requires much more attention, is its

pretense to non-ideological, academic objectivity . In reality, these “terror experts ”, almost uniformly, have a

deeply ideological view — a jingoistic , highly provincial understanding — of what Terrorism is and is not.

They generally fixate on Muslims to the exclusion of all other forms of Terror. In particular, the idea that the U.S. or its allies now commit Terrorism is taboo, unthinkable. Their views on what Terrorism is track the U.S. Government’s and, by design, justify U.S. government actions. They are not “experts” as much as they are ideologues, rank propagandists, and servants of America’s establishment power centers .¶ The reason the term “terrorism experts” deserves to be put in quotation marks is not as some ad hominem insult (something the mavens of the “terror expert” clique are incapable of understanding, as they demonstrated with their ludicrously personalized outrage when I applied this critique to one of

their industry’s most cherished Patron Saints, Will McCants). Rather, it’s because — as I’ve written about many times before — the very concept of Terrorism is inherently empty, illegitimate, meaningless. “Terrorism ” itself is not an objective term

or legitimate object of study, but was conceived of as a highly politicized instrument

and has been used that way ever since.¶ The best scholarship on this issue, in my view, comes from Remi Brulin, who teaches at NYU and wrote his PhD dissertation at the Sorbonne in Paris on the discourse of Terrorism. When I interviewed him in 2010, he described the history of the term — it was pushed by Israel in the 1960s and early 1970s as a means of universalizing its conflicts (this

isn’t our fight against our enemies over land; it’s the Entire World’s Fight against The Terrorists!). The term was then picked up by the neocons in the Reagan administration to justify their covert wars in Central America (in a test run for what they did after

9/11, they continuously exclaimed: we’re fighting against The Terrorists in Central America, even as they themselves armed and funded classic Terror groups in El Salvador and Nicaragua). From the start, the central challenge was how to define the term so as to include the violence used by the enemies of the U.S. and Israel, while excluding the violence the U.S., Israel and their allies used , both historically and

presently . That still has not been figured out, which is why there is no fixed, accepted definition of the term, and certainly no consistent

application.¶ Brulin details the well-known game-playing with the term: in the 1980s, Iraq was put on the U.S. list of Terror states when the U.S. disliked Saddam for being aligned with the Soviets; then Iraq was taken off when the U.S. wanted to arm Saddam to fight Iran; then they were put back on again when the U.S. wanted to attack Iraq. The same thing is happening now with the MEK: now that they’re a pro-U.S. and pro-Israel Terror group rather than a Saddam-allied one, they are magically no longer going to be deemed Terrorists. That is what Terrorism is : a term of propaganda, a means of justifying one’s own state violence — not some objective field of

discipline in which one develops “expertise .”¶ This flaw in the concept of “terrorism expertise” is not a discrete

indictment of specific “scholars,” but is a fundamental flaw plaguing the entire field. Even the most decorated and honored “terrorism experts” are little more than ideological propagandists , because that’s what the term

necessarily entails. Today, Brulin wrote the following to me regarding U.S. Reagan-era policy in Central America — namely, supporting Terror groups (death squads) while denouncing Terrorism — and the specific “terrorism expert” often held up as the field’s most prestigious, Bruce Hoffman:¶ One obvious question comes to mind: how do “terrorism experts” deal with US policies in Salvador during the 1980s?¶ A comprehensive analysis of the two major “terrorism studies” journals, “Studies on Conflict and Terrorism” (simply titled “Terrorism” until 1992) and “Terrorism and Political Violence” shows that overall these journals have dealt with this issue by … being silent about it. More precisely, several authors in fact absolutely accept that the concept of “state terrorism” is a valid one, and that acts by “death squads” clearly fall under that definition also. They simply never deal with this issue in the context of the real world policies of the United States and of the Reagan years in particular, a silence all the more surprising than Reagan was the first American President to develop a “discourse on terrorism”.¶ Reacting to Glenn Greenwald, Andrew Exum wrote: “Greenwald makes it seem as if states are never mentioned as terrorist actors, but there is a lot of literature on the use of coercive violence by states and state terrorism”. This is true of course, but at least when it comes to the conflict of El Salvador studied here, and to US policies in that country, those who did write about this issue have never been published in the major “terrorism studies journals.”¶ Exum then adds: “Bruce Hoffman published this book in 1999. I’m pretty sure those two guys are terrorism experts without the scare quotes.”¶ In “Inside Terrorism”, to his merit, Hoffman devotes a full chapter to the question of the “definition of terrorism.” What follows in the rest of his book is naturally dependent on what he decides to include and not include in his definition of “terrorism”. Here is, in full, how Hoffman deals with the issue of “death squads” (emphasis added):¶ “The use of so-called ‘death squads’ (often off-duty or plain-clothes security or police officers) in conjunction with blatant intimidation of political opponents, human rights and aid workers, student groups, labor organizers, journalists and others has been a prominent feature of the right-wing military dictatorships that took power in Argentina, Chile and Greece during the 1970s and even of elected governments in El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia and Peru since the mid-1980s. But these state-sanctioned or explicitly ordered acts of internal political violence directed mostly against domestic populations — that is, rule by violence and intimidation by those already in power against their own

citizenry — are generally termed ‘terror’ in order to distinguish that phenomenon from ‘terrorism’, which is understood to be violence committed by non-state entities. (Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 27).¶ Sadly, Hoffman does not tell his readers who at the time “termed acts by death squads ‘terror’”, or who wishes to do so “in order to distinguish this phenomenon from ‘terrorism.’”¶ Not only is this argument rather less than convincing, but most crucially no one in Washington, at the time, ever used this argument, and this

for obvious reasons. Indeed, as Hoffman himself notes, the “death squads”, “even in elected governments like El Salvador”, were “state-sanctioned”, precisely what the Reagan administration kept denying at the time. Furthermore, Hoffman’s argument makes no sense in the historical context: can one imagine the Reagan administration defending US aid to El Salvador as part of the “fight against terrorism” while stating that the ties between that State and the “death squad” posed no problem because they merely fell under the concept of “terror”?¶ Thus, the role of “terrorism experts” cannot simply be described as blindly accepting of the official “discourse on terrorism”, although this is

already a strong critique. As the case of El Salvador demonstrates, what they have done is to invent

arguments aimed at excluding from discussion specific issues , while hiding or being completely silent

about the actual debates that took place on this topic at the very heart of Washington . In so doing, they

have allowed a “terrorism discourse” to developed and become hegemonic despite the many

internal inconsistencies t hat have been at its heart from the very beginning .¶ Finally, one will note that

Hoffman, in Inside Terrorism, makes no mention of the Contras and their support by the Reagan administration. This is a difficult decision to explain, since aid to the Contras falls under the concept of “state sponsored terrorism”, the validity of which is accepted by all experts. Here, Hoffman uses the technique used by so many other “terrorism experts” in this case: he simply decides to not write about it, with no explanation

given.¶ The entire field is one huge effort to legitimize U.S. state violence and delegitimize the violence

by its enemies (along those lines: the court-martial of accused Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan began today, and I asked earlier today on Twitter whether this attack constituted Terrorism given that it targeted a military base and soldiers of a nation at war. My mere asking of this question sparked all sorts of intense outrage from the predictable “natsec” D.C. mavens: Of course it’s Terrorism, as Hasan killed unarmed people including one civilian, exclaimed people who would never, ever dare apply the Terrorism label to the civilian-devastating U.S. attack on Iraq or the use of American drones and cluster bombs to kill innocent civilians by the dozens; that is the discourse of Terrorism: violence by Muslims against a U.S. military base during a time of war qualifies, but violence by the U.S. Government against thousands of innocent Muslim civilians never could).¶ Brulin is far from alone among scholars in recognizing the true purpose of this sham discipline. Harvard’s Lisa Stampnitzky, whom I interviewed several months ago, is also a leading scholar on the exploitation of Terrorism and the field that calls itself “terrorism experts.” In a superb journal article in Qualitative Sociology, she documents that “‘Terrorism’ has proved to be a highly problematic object of expertise”; in particular, “Terrorism studies fails to conform to the most common sociological notions of what a field of intellectual production ought to look like, and has been described by participants and observers alike as a failure.” She notes that the harshest condemnations have come from those who work in this academic discipline: “Terrorism researchers have characterized their field as stagnant, poorly conceptualized, lacking in rigor, and devoid of adequate theory, data, and methods.” That includes Bruce Hoffman himself, who, she notes, wrote:¶ Fifteen years ago, the study of terrorism was described by perhaps the world’s preeminent authority on modern warfare as a ’huge and ill-defined subject [that] has probably been responsible for more incompetent and unnecessary books than any other outside the field of sociology. It attracts phonies and amateurs…as a candle attracts moths’… [T]errorism research arguably has failed miserably.¶ Stampnitzky adds: “More than 15 years after this assessment, descriptions of the field are rife with similar claims.” Indeed, her forthcoming book from Cambridge University Press is entitled “Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented Terrorism” and, in her words, it “explains how political violence became ‘terrorism,’ and how this transformation led to the current ‘war on terror’.” For that reason, she argues in her dissertation, “those who would address terrorism as a rational object, subject to scientific analysis and manipulation, produce a discourse which they are unable to control, as attempts at scientific discourse are continually hybridized by the moral discourse of the public sphere, in which terrorism is conceived as a problem of evil and pathology.” Indeed, she explains in her journal article, “One of the most oft-noted difficulties has been the inability of researchers to establish a suitable definition of the concept of ‘terrorism’ itself.”¶ In a recently published journal article in International Security, entitled “The Terrorism Delusion,” Professors John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart (cited by Walt) extensively document what a fraud the concept of “Terrorism” has become over the last decade. Specifically, ”the exaggerations of the threat presented by terrorism and then on the distortions of perspective these exaggerations have inspired— distortions that have in turn inspired a determined and expensive quest to ferret out, and even to create, the nearly nonexistent .”¶ Richard Jackson is a Professor at the The National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in New Zealand. He has written volumes on the fraud of “terrorism expertise” and the propagandistic purpose of this field of discipline. He has documented that most self-proclaimed “terrorism experts” simply ignore the primary cause of the violence they claim to study: “most terrorism scholars, politicians and the media don’t seem to ‘know’ that terrorism is most often caused by military intervention overseas , and not religion, radicalization, insanity, ideology, poverty or such like ” — even though “the Pentagon has known it for years.” In one article entitled “10 Things More Likely to Kill You Than Terrorism,” he notes that “The chances of you dying in a terrorist attack are in the range of 1 in 80,000 , or about the same chance of being killed by a meteor,” and that bathtubs, vending machines, and lightning all pose a greater risk

of death .¶ In a book critiquing the “terrorism expert” field, Jackson argued that “most of what is accepted as well-founded ’knowledge’ in

terrorism studies is, in fact, highly debatable and unstable.“ He therefore scorns almost four decades of so-called Terrorism scholarship as ”based on a series of ‘virulent myths’, ’half-truths’ and contested claims” that are plainly “biased towards Western state priorities.” To Jackson, terrorism is “a social fact rather than a brute fact” and “does not exist outside of the definitions and practices which seek to enclose it, including those of the terrorism studies field.” In sum, it means whatever the wielder of the term wants it to mean: something that cannot be the subject of legitimate “expertise.”¶ * * * * *¶ There is no term more potent in our political discourse and legal landscape than “Terrorism .” It

shuts down every rational thought process and political debate the minute it is uttered . It justifies

torture (we have to get information from the Terrorists); due-process-free- assassinations even of our own citizens

(Obama has to kill the Terrorists); and rampant secrecy (the Government can’t disclose what it’s doing or have courts rule on its legality because the Terrorists will learn of it), and it sends people to prison for decades (material supporters of Terrorism).¶ It is a telling paradox indeed that this central, all-justifying word is simultaneously the most meaningless and therefore the most manipulated. It is, as I have noted before, a word that simultaneously means nothing yet justifies everything. Indeed, that’s the

point: it is such a useful concept precisely because it’s so malleable, because it means whatever those

with power to shape discourse want it to mean . And no faction has helped this process along as much as the group of self-

proclaimed “terrorism experts” that has attached itself to think tanks, academia, and media outlets. They enable pure political

propaganda to masquerade as objective fact , shining brightly with the veneer of scholarly rigor . The industry itself is a fraud, as are those who profit from and within it.